


Poem

by JoAsakura



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard receives poetry</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poem

After Rannoch, after the adrenaline dies down and the screams are just an echo, they have an argument. It's not the kind of argument that Shepard hopes for, the kind with angry shouting and fists slamming against furniture. The kind of argument that hopefully clears the air like a thunderstorm does.

This argument is cold and detached and sits in his chest like a ghost made of ice water. A reminder of his hubris and the ruthless calculus of war. And for days, he and Kaidan simply don't talk beyond the necessary. 

And it hurts.

But then one day, Shepard finds a piece of paper - actual real paper, a scrap of something brown and heavy that something else must have been packed in - folded neatly and tucked into a joint in his armour.

It's unsigned, and the writing is tiny, precise, and Shepard realises he's got no idea what Kaidan's handwriting looks like. Or Cortez's. Or *anyone's* for that matter.

_You and me, We're no longer young  
And in this war, weeks have to do the work  
of the years we spent just out of reach of the other. _

_But when I *was* young  
did I ever feel like this?  
Was I full of strange hope and life  
So eager for the future?_

_Did I ever wait for someone  
Like I wait for you,  
nerves aching for the rhythm of your steps?_

_And you, you move toward me, the same.  
You, walking, (as you dance like a one-legged krogan  
tho I long to see that too)_

_I see home in your eyes.  
the green-blue earth washed in sunlight.  
I feel home in your touch  
the warm brush of summer winds._

_When we were young, we thought we’d live forever.  
Now, thick with scars from time and violence,  
these weeks take that place._

_Each time I touch you, I know this is all we may have  
Each time I touch you, I know we must help each other live  
Each time I touch you, I know someday, we will help each other die  
_

He keeps this scrap of paper in his armour like a talisman, and soon ghost in his chest goes away and the icy divide between them warms as their fingers brush against each other in the mess hall and apologies are whispered between bodies pressed close in the brief privacy of the lift.

After Thessia falls, and he swallows another of the pills Dr. Chakwas gave him to make the shaking stop, he unfolds the paper again and smooths it with trembling fingers. he looks at it for a long time, then carefully refolds it, tucking it back in his pocket.

There are things he needs to do.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem is inspired by one by author Adrienne Rich - for a number of reasons I wanted to take the feeling and imagery of the poem and rewrite it, rather than quote it directly.
> 
> Whether or not I succeeded is up to the reader to decide. :)


End file.
